After a few days on the island of Ko Samui in Thailand, we have moved on. Glad to get away from the repressive heat and topless swedes (not the vegetables!) Besides the Shark steaks, the only living sharks drive taxis and circle unsuspecting prey. The other morning we were told that a taxi would cost 30 baht (70 pence) across the island for a ferry. However there are two ferry's, one at 7.30 a.m. and one at 8.00 a.m. As we were waiting at 7.00 a.m., the taxi drivers were trying to charge us 400 baht to the port thinking we would miss our Ferry otherwise! Eventually got a school bus at the right rate.
The Thai people are in general very friendly and very skinny. In the tourist areas, they tend to be a bet healthier looking due the amount of money they must be creaming off of tourists!! In the restaurants, they tend to wait on you like pining dogs - one move of a finger or nod of the head and they come over. Finishing the last drink of the night and dragging out the final precious drops of alcohol before going home is difficult as the lounge boys are worse than those in Dublin and will swipe away your glass in an over-zealous flash. When ordering a meal, the waiters can be over polite. If they don't understand what you ask for they just nod yes and bring you what they want. It's not worth complaining! Overall Thailand was great, good weather, good food but the people do everything at their own pace and when it suits them - might have to come back again to have a proper look at the place.
Finally reached Malaysia yesterday evening - a much more organised people. They seem a bit more genuine - perhaps the fact that they are all heavier means that they are not as hungry for tourist money. Presently staying on the island of Penang - very nice place with a Chinatown and Indian area, muslims, hindus, buddhists and christians. This place is a former British colony with plenty of relics of the Empire. Most of the buildings date from around the 1920s and don't look as if they have been painted since then. In between these are enormous new high rise banks and apartment blocks. The place is full of internet centres - impossible to hear anything in them however as everyone seems to play Quake, Sim City etc with speakers blasting!!
Tomorrow we get a bus to Kuala Lumpur and from there continue south to Singapore.
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